Ex-cop imprisoned 15 years for murder ruled innocent

Wednesday

Jan 30, 2013 at 12:01 AMJan 30, 2013 at 8:49 PM

The steely expression that usually controls Doug Prade's face softened to quivering lips and puffy eyes. He was moments away from stepping outside prison walls as an innocent man for the first time in 15 years. The former Akron police captain, convicted of killing his former wife in 1998, was declared innocent by a Summit County judge yesterday after new tests found that Prade's DNA didn't match evidence collected at the scene of Dr. Margo Prade's murder.

The steely expression that usually controls Doug Prade's face softened to quivering lips and puffy eyes. He was moments away from stepping outside prison walls as an innocent man for the first time in 15 years.

The former Akron police captain, convicted of killing his former wife in 1998, was declared innocent by a Summit County judge yesterday after new tests found that Prade's DNA didn't match evidence collected at the scene of Dr. Margo Prade's murder.

After the ruling early yesterday, Prade spent about seven hours inside the Madison Correctional Institution in London being treated like a yo-yo amid legal wrangling over his future. About four times throughout the day, Prade was told he would be released but then was told he had to stay a little longer. He finally was able to embrace his sister at about 4:30 p.m. upon his release.

"People have been calling me a murderer for 15 years after I served as a police officer for almost 30, and that's what hurt most," said Prade, 66, who was serving a life sentence. "I've been saying I was innocent for all these years, and this is just the validation of that. I'm so sorry for what happened to Margo, but I wasn't the killer."

He is the fifth man featured in the 2008 Dispatch series "Test of Convictions" who has been exonerated and freed from prison. The series exposed Ohio's flawed evidence-retention and DNA-testing systems and is available at Dispatch.com/reports.

Prade was found guilty of shooting his ex-wife six times after a struggle in a parking lot outside her medical office on Nov. 26, 1997. The couple, who had two children, had divorced seven months earlier after a 17-year marriage. Margo was 41 at the time of her death.

Key to Prade's conviction in 1998 was a bite mark found on Dr. Prade's lab coat. During his trial, an expert testified that the mark matched Prade's teeth.

After years of declaring his innocence, Prade finally won DNA testing last year of the lab coat, and specifically the bite mark. Testing results showed that Prade's DNA didn't match the traces of saliva left on the coat.

In her 25-page ruling issued yesterday, Summit County Common Pleas Judge Judy L. Hunter wrote that the DNA testing proves he wasn't the killer.

Prade "is actually innocent of aggravated murder," Hunter wrote. "The court is not unsympathetic to the family members, friends, and community who want to see justice for Dr. Prade. However, the evidence that the defendant presented in this case is clear and convincing. Based on the review of the conclusive DNA test results and the evidence from the 1998 trial, the court is firmly convinced that no reasonable juror would convict the defendant."

At a hearing on the evidence in October, prosecutors argued that results of the DNA testing were meaningless because two unidentified male profiles were found in the bite-mark evidence. Both were extremely small, causing prosecutors to say that they could have come from contamination.

But the judge didn't buy that argument or the testimony from two witnesses, who said they saw Prade near the murder scene.

Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh and Akron Police Chief James Nice each said in written statements that the judge is wrong. Bevan Walsh says she will appeal.

"All of the evidence points to Prade as the person who murdered Dr. Margo Prade," the prosecutor said in the statement.

But Prade and his attorneys have argued that the bite-mark testimony was based on "junk science," and that it misled the jury in a case that had received national attention.

"The DNA has spoken: Doug Prade is an innocent man," said Carrie Wood, one of Prade's attorneys from the Cincinnati-based Ohio Innocence Project. "It's time for him to come home."

Prade has maintained his innocence, and in 2004, he applied for DNA testing. But his request was denied under an old Ohio law that routinely prevented judges from granting inmates testing.

In "Test of Convictions," The Dispatch reviewed more than 300 cases with the Ohio Innocence Project and highlighted 30 inmates as prime candidates for testing, including Prade. As part of the project, attorneys for the Innocence Project then filed Prade's request for DNA testing, which was granted in the fall of 2010.

When Prade awoke in his cell yesterday morning, he had no idea the judge's ruling would be released later in the day.

He said he went through the chow line, then to his prison job in the maintenance room before returning to his cell and getting ready to shower. A guard then told him to pack up his belongings and follow him.

He then received a call from Wood, who told him the judge declared him innocent. Both Prade and his attorney broke down and cried as they shared the news. That was followed by the series of delays that caused Prade and his attorneys to agonize over whether he would taste freedom yesterday. Prosecutors attempted to keep Prade in prison a while longer by filing motions in court.

In a 45-minute interview with The Dispatch just before his release, Prade said he now will focus mainly on making up for lost time with his daughters, grandchildren and siblings. He also wants to crusade for the wrongly convicted and those he sees as victims of the criminal-justice system by working with the Innocence Project.

He isn't sure where he will live, but he is "pretty sure" he won't stay in Akron. He's leaning toward moving to Texas, where several relatives live.

Prade credits the Innocence Project and The Dispatch for helping to prove his innocence, but he credits his sister, Caralynn Prade-Debose, the most for "saving his life."

"She is the one that believed in me for 15 years, wrote hundreds of letters and did everything she could to free me," Prade said.

He said he blames police investigators, prosecutors and even himself for his wrongful conviction.

"There were officers who had animosity against me, prosecutors who wanted to get a high-profile conviction to obtain higher office, and I blame myself partially for not getting a bulldog lawyer like Johnnie Cochran," he said. "People need to understand that police and prosecutors make mistakes all the time."

Prade said he hopes Akron police now will focus on finding Dr. Prade's killer. He has no plans to get involved in an investigation of her death but would like to speak to his ex-wife's family if they are willing to talk with him.

"I talked to Margo every day for the last 15 years," he said. "I'm so sorry for what happened to her, and I think she would be sorry for what has happened to me."

He said he isn't focused on receiving compensation from the state or in civil suits for being wrongly convicted, but he would like to recoup the $200,000 he and his family members have spent trying to prove his innocence.

His only other immediate desire is a home-cooked meal, and he knows what he wants: charred catfish, black-eyed peas with okra, potato salad, buttermilk biscuits and peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream.

"And that is just for the first course," Prade said with a rare smile.

Prade's daughter Sahara, who lives in Las Vegas, said yesterday by phone that she would love to share that meal with her father, whom she hasn't seen in seven years.

"I really don't think this will feel real until I actually see him," said Sahara, who is now in her early 20s. "I am always going to have mixed emotions about this case because my mom is gone. But I am happy to be getting my dad back."

mwagner@dispatch.com

@MikeWagner48

jriepenhoff@dispatch.com

@JRiep

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